Kate Rolla (1859 – December 28, 1925), born Katherine Doane Wheat, was an American opera singer.
Early life and education
Katherine Doane Wheat was born in
Wheeling, West Virginia, the daughter of George Keiter Wheat and Fannie Josephine Doane Wheat. Her father was a banker and businessman, and her mother was a suffragist and clubwoman. Her younger brother
Larry Wheat
Laurence Wheat (October 10, 1876 – August 7, 1963) was an American character actor of the silent and sound film eras.
Biography
Born on October 20, 1876, in Wheeling, West Virginia, Wheat entered the film industry in 1921 with a supporti ...
became an actor.
After an early first marriage faltered, Rolla went to Paris to train as a singer, with
Mathilde Marchesi.
Career
Rolla made her operatic stage debut at the
Teatro Carcano
The Teatro Carcano is a theatre in Milan, Italy, located at 63 Corso di Porta Romana. Although now exclusively devoted to plays and dance, it served as an opera house for much of the 19th century and saw the premieres of several important operas. ...
in Milan, singing the title role in ''
Linda di Chamounix''. She sang in various European cities, from Dublin to Moscow. In 1887 she sang at the
Teatro Bellini in Naples, and returned to Wheeling to give a concert, fresh from "her foreign triumphs". She sang at London's
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...
in 1888, in ''
Don Giovanni
''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; Vienna (1788) title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanis ...
,'' and in 1891, in ''
Carmen
''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first perfo ...
'' and ''
Le prophète.'' She sang in one production of the
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, ''Mirette'' in 1894. In 1896, she sang with the
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...
.
Contemporary descriptions of Rolla's voice record various estimations of her skill. "Her voice is of pure and bell-like quality," commented one American newspaper in 1887, "with a degree of power that is almost equal to that of
Materna
"America the Beautiful" is a patriotic American song. Its lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates and its music was composed by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward at Grace Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey. The two never m ...
." But a review in ''
The New York Times'' was ambivalent in 1892, explaining that she "has a powerful voice of a somewhat metallic timbre, but she sang her numbers with considerable taste and fairly won her applause."
Rolla appeared in two Broadway musical productions, ''The Return of Eve'' (1909) and ''Molly May'' (1910). By that time, her singing voice had faded: "Kate Rolla as Mrs. Sparks was excellent till she tried to sing," said one 1910 reviewer. Rolla taught voice students in New York City during
World War I.
Personal life
Katherine Wheat married Oscar Rammelsberg in 1876 and had a son, George, born in 1879 in Ohio. The Rammelsbergs divorced in 1883. She died late in 1925, in her sixties, from an infection after an
appendectomy
An appendectomy, also termed appendicectomy, is a Surgery, surgical operation in which the vermiform appendix (a portion of the intestine) is removed. Appendectomy is normally performed as an urgent or emergency procedure to treat complicated acu ...
.
[U.S., Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1835-1974, National Archives; report for Mrs. Katherine Wheat Rammelsberg, died December 28, 1925. via Ancestry]
References
External links
*
An illustration depicting Kate Rolla at Getty Images
''Kurt of Gerolstein'' (December 14, 2020), a blog post about Rolla
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rolla, Kate
1859 births
1925 deaths
Musicians from Wheeling, West Virginia
American opera singers
Singers from West Virginia